


Terms of Endearment

by Beguile



Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Luke Cage (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Awkwardness, Cuddling, Fluff, Gen, Snuggling, Social Anxiety, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, esteem issues, minor H/C, sensory defensiveness, well technically there's three beds but they get pushed together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 01:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17376773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beguile/pseuds/Beguile
Summary: They have their own way of saying how they really feel.One-shot.





	Terms of Endearment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [c_doves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/c_doves/gifts).



> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> A very belated Merry Fic-Mas to c_doves, who prompted the word ‘endearment.’ I hope you enjoy!

* * *

 

               The warmth wakes him, gently filling him from all sides. Matt can’t move. The heat seems solid from its intensity, taking up weight as much under as his skin as around it. He shifts an arm but only just, unable to do much more with how heavy he feels.

               He searches through sensory cues – the long-sleeve shirt clinging to his arms around his hands, blankets gathered at his waist and feet. Eventually, he finds heartbeats thrumming along his front and back, dense and muffled from the warmth, and Matt draws a breath to identify his bedfellows. Green tea and fire says Danny’s at his spine; leather and whiskey and dried blood says it’s Jessica at his chest. Luke looms behind her, a mountain of coffee and fleece.  

               They’re sleeping, all of them, Jessica more deeply than the other two. Matt holds the sound of her heart in his ears, measuring the beats; he releases a breath when he notices that her pulse is almost back to normal.

               He tracks the space with his senses next, refusing to move lest he wake one of them and prompt questions. Through the dense blanket of human warmth, Matt senses high ceilings, damp rock, and timbers. Cheap candle wax collects around the faint ringing sounds of glass against metal. He’s finally able to place the distinctive smell of the blankets, of his shirt: Clinton Church, basement, though when the bed became large enough to support four adults, including one the size of Luke Cage, Matt doesn’t know.

               Getting to the church is a chaotic memory; the decision to lie down was an automatic response to Jessica and her hypovolemic shock. Anything to keep her warm, keep her stabilized. Danny must have laid down shortly after, having used the rest of his chi to heal Jessica’s wounds.

               Matt inches up, testing his weight on the mattress. Mattresses, actually – they’re lying on three beds, not one. Sprawled across like Snow White-s. Again, Matt’s confused as to when more than one bed made it into the space; for now he’s simply grateful, not to mention determined to escape without waking the others.

               He rolls his hips, following his feet. He hasn’t moved more than an inch when Danny’s arm flops over his side. Matt gently extricates himself from under the limb only to have Jessica roll into his chest. Luke inches closer to her protectively, making it impossible for Matt to move her or himself for that matter.

               Danny’s face finds his shoulder. Matt winces from the contact. Warmth is one thing, but to have so many heartbeats on him, to have faces in his skin, it’s a lot, and Matt doesn’t know what to do with it all. Hunch his shoulders forward, he meets Jessica; shoulders back, he meets Danny. Shuffle, squirm, inch any which way, Matt finds the collective weight of their ragtag bunch.

               Matt heaves a sigh when Danny’s arm lands on his side again. He tucks his hands insides the sleeves of his shirt, making fists inside the cuffs to cope. It’s just too much, this. All of this. Warmth and life and blankets, the four of them together in the church like tuckered out kids at a slumber party; at least two of them in desperate need of sleep due to injury (Jess) and exertion (Danny). Matt centres himself on that last thought to keep himself from running. It’s been a hell of a couple of days. These three deserve sleep, and Matt knows too well how comfortable, how safe, it feels inside of Clinton Church.

               He doesn’t know how much time passes before Jessica groans. She shoves at him with her face, and when that doesn’t work, she puts her hand into it, knocking Matt back into Danny, who rouses just long enough to wrap his arm even more tightly around Matt before settling back into sleep.

               Jessica jerks back with a start. She hits Luke, who lets out a sigh. “Take it easy, Jess,” he says tiredly, shifting his face deeper into the mattress.

               “What the hell is this?” she asks.

               Matt grimaces, unable to do much from inside Danny’s embrace. “We were saving your life.”  
  
               “You’re trying to kill me.”  
  
               “We’re saving your life,” Danny reiterates sleepily, still tucked against Matt’s spine.

               “I want to die,” Jessica says.

               Matt bites his lip before he can agree with her out loud. “Uh, you…mind easing up, Danny?”  
  
               “Sorry,” Danny extracts his arm, but he doesn’t break contact with Matt. “You’re warm. You’re all warm.”

               “Yeah, I noticed that.”  
  
               Luke’s heartbeat perks up. “This isn’t uncomfortable,” he says, a little surprised by the admission and the truth behind it.

               “Oh, my God…” Jessica goes to get up. Her pulse does a funny leap, and she sinks, her head landing heavily next to Matt. Her cheeks clack against her teeth from the dryness of her mouth. “Oh, shit. What the hell?”

               “Just take it easy,” Luke says. “You got cut up.”  
  
               “Yeah, I know. I was there.”  
  
               “Danny healed you.”  
  
               “Yay.” Jessica winces, temporarily unable to breathe. She shifts uncomfortably on the beds. Matt recognizes the sound, his own discomfort a perfect match to hers. However, Jessica sounds sincere – if deadpan – when she adds, “Thanks.”  
  
               “You’re welcome,” Danny replies. His arms ease into Matt’s spine, and this time they don’t feel so oppressive, nor so agitating. The pressure speaks to Matt’s skin, warm and present instead of hot and insistent. He isn’t quite so desperate to get away.

               Jessica, on the other hand, can barely contain her heartbeat as it spirals out of control. “Where are we?” she asks to distract herself.

               Matt is only too happy to join her in the distraction from the ease of the moment, from the gentleness of it. The proximity of people. “Clinton Church. The basement. I stayed here after Midland Circle.”  
  
               “I thought you stayed at the orphanage,” Luke says.

               “In the beginning. I moved here when I was up and walking around again.” Matt draws a breath, ignoring how loaded the air is with the smell of skin and hair and _friends_. These are his friends. “There was only one bed then.”  
  
               “You were just one person.”

               Matt’s heart springs right into his throat. Jessica’s goes into a death march. Luke’s ticks away in his chest like a clock; he stiffens on the bed. Danny yawns and stretches behind Matt, perfectly at ease.

               “Maggie,” Matt says.

               “Matthew,” Maggie replies. Her heartbeat knocks against one of the pillars at the foot of the bed. For how long, Matt can’t be sure. “Matthew’s friends.”  
  
               “Hello, Sister,” Luke says.

               “Oh, my God…” Jessica groans.

               Danny sits up on the bed. He waves, and his characteristic grin is audible on his face. “Hello, Sister. Pleasure to meet you.”  
  
               “Likewise,” Maggie says with a tight-lipped smile. “Are you enjoying your slumber party?”  
  
               “This isn’t what it looks like,” Matt insists.

               “Jessica was dying,” Luke says says.

               “ _I was dying_ ,” Jessica repeats sternly, in case Maggie missed it before.

               “I was able to heal her with my powers, but I was unable to replenish the blood she lost,” Danny continues. “She was in shock and required heat.”  
  
               “You certainly look cozy,” Maggie says, her voice sparking with an odd warmth. From the sentimental sight of them altogether, a litter of delinquent kittens, or her own amusement, Matt can’t tell. Probably both.

               Jessica groans. She makes another effort to get up, and her nose brushes Matt’s. The touch blooms through his face in a mix of softness and shame. He’s sorry; he tries to say so, but he’s too busy trying to give her the distance she deserves. He gets into a half-assed war with the blankets, with the long sleeves of his shirt, with Danny’s arms, with Luke’s voice, with all the heartbeats – with Maggie’s heartbeat. In the end, the best he can manage is to sit up. Danny’s face ends up in his thigh. Jessica’s hair scatters across his lap. Matt raises his hands away from the velvet calm of Luke’s voice, “Whoa, Murdock.”

               “Yeah, geez, Murdock,” Jessica intones, like her heartbeat isn’t just as jittery as his from the contact, “Spaz much?”

               Matt fixes himself to Maggie’s heartbeat, the only constant, and one at a comfortable distance. “Jessica was dying,” he insists again, hoping that this time will be enough. They’ll all believe it.

               “Of course,” Maggie says.

               “She was.”  
  
               “Yes.”

               He furrows his brow, frustrated. It occurs to him that he’s waiting for her to say something. He’s waiting for her to pull the blanket off them – literally or with the simple reminder that Jessica isn’t dying anymore, so why are they still cozied up together. When Maggie refuses to do so, Matt comes back with more questions: “What time is it?”  
  
               “A little after seven.”  
  
               “What are you doing down here?”

               “Checking in. You didn’t wake when I came down last time.”  
  
               “Last time?”

               Maggie’s pulse thrums smugly. “I brought breakfast. For when you’re up and around.”

               “Thank you, Sister,” Danny says, his jaw tightening the itch in Matt’s leg.

               “Are you getting up, Matthew?” Maggie asks.

               He doesn’t know. The warmth circling his legs from Jessica and Danny and Luke keeps calling to him even as his guts twist with shame: for noticing, for wanting, for sitting there. He distracts himself: “Who moved the extra beds down here?”  
  
               “A few of older boys at St. Agnes were caught smoking in the bathroom. They exchanged penance for silence about their misconduct.” Then, as if it’s not clear as to why, “The Devil’s been in good company lately.”

               “I assume you intended for them to be separate sleeping accommodations,” Matt notes.

               Luke scoffs. “Jess was dying.” 

               “I was _dying_ ,” Jessica agrees. 

               Danny speaks loudest of all, letting his voice fill the recesses of the basement, lest the ceiling still find their flimsy excuse wanting: “She was dying.”

               Maggie’s heartbeat is a smug little dance of joy from the end of the beds, but even it can’t drown out the sounds of her eyes rolling. “You were saving a life, Matthew.”

               “We’re still saving a life,” Luke adds. He pats Matt on the forearm. “Jessica can’t get out of bed.”  
  
               “Shut up,” Jessica says.

               “You can’t.”

               She doesn’t reply, nor does Jessica try to prove him right by attempting to get up again.

               “Breakfast will be waiting,” Maggie says. “Put the place back as you found it before you go.” And then, as if it’s not clear what’s being commanded of him (which it isn’t), “Rest easy, Matthew.”

               “Thank you again, Sister,” Luke calls.

               “Yes, thank you!” Danny adds.

               “Matthew’s friends,” Maggie says in parting.  

               Jessica groans and tightens up next to Matt. He puts a hand on the side of her head in solidarity and gets bucked off for much the same reason.

               Maggie leaves, this time letting the soft soles of her shoes tap against the concrete, loud enough that they speak over the impenetrable warmth surrounding Matt. He pats a hand on the mattress, his fingers catching stray locks of Jessica’s hair, brushing against Luke’s bent forearm, trickling against the coils of Danny’s curls. The moment ticks by and the itch under his skin dissipates. The tug of his skeleton eases. They’re not complaining; they’re quiet and dozing, heartbeats stable and contented, and if Matt gives himself the chance, if they don’t talk about it or acknowledge it outside that warmth blooming between them, his heartbeat joins them too.

               “Everything alright, Murdock?” Luke asks.

               “Yeah,” Matt says, refusing to acknowledge the words they could use to describe this. The words Maggie could have used instead of moving beds into the church basement or the breakfast she brought. He tugs the blanket over him as he slips back into bed between Jessica and Danny. “I’m glad we found each other,” he utters quickly.

               “I am too,” Danny agrees, shoving his cheek back into Matt’s shoulder.

               Matt lets out a small laugh, no longer aggravated by the contact.

               Jessica seems more comfortable too. “You’re such a marshmallow.”

               “Yeah,” Luke agrees, “but I’m with you, Murdock. I’m glad we found each other too.”  
               “God, you three.” Jessica wraps her arms around her torso to keep from touching them, but she rolls forward slightly. Matt catches her shoulder against his. Luke’s hand grips her waist.

               Danny stretches an arm over Matt to grip Luke by the wrist. Jessica groans loudly between them, but whatever she says next is lost in the warmth. Everything gets lost in the warmth, and for once, Matt is happy to let it.

* * *

 

Happy Reading!


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